‘Real Housewives of New Jersey’: Wyatt Derp

The Real Housewives of New Jersey
“Horse Whisperer to a Scream”
September 1, 2013Buongiorno, kittens! Put on your turquoise jewelry and ankle-high cowboy boots; we’re still in Arizona sweating with the therapy with our favorite guidos.

BUT FIRST, your weekly Goombahs Go to Jail update: Andy Cohen and the ladies taped their reunion special on Wednesday and, as to be expected, Teresa totally lawyered up. So don’t be expecting to get any real information about their fraud case when the reunion shows roll around in Dio only knows when, November? Probably not until November if these listings dates are correct, Dio mio.

The morning after the big gong hike, Melissa wakes up with chapped lips and a bad attitude about having to do any more meditating or talk therapy … even though she spent the entire previous day in bed next to the pool “recovering from the flu.” WHY CAN’T THEY DRINK COCKTAILS BY THE POOL? WHY CAN’T THEY JUST PUT ON BIKINIS AND SIP VODKA ALL DAY? WAH.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline and Laurita have a nice, quiet breakfast together, where Jac tells her husband that she, for some reason, misses the old Teresa and goes on about how nice Teresa is being before adding, “Oh, and she totally said that Nicholas has The Autism because of karma.” Laurita is rightfully alarmed by this. If Teresa had said that — which she did not — that would have been terrible! But they are giving Teresa waaaaay too much credit here. 1. Teresa is not nearly clever enough to make such a cruel implication and 2. To have come up with such a terrible thing about Nicholas would have required Teresa to be thinking about someone other than Teresa. So.

Teresa sneaks up on them and pounces on their table, and everyone is like “GESÙ CRISTO!” because don’t scare people like that COME ON. YOUS GIVIN US A HEART ATTACK HERE.

Then everyone goes to horse therapy. Ippoterapia. Which is its own word in Italian? I guess sociopathic Italians respond well to petting horses, go figure. (Or, at least, sociopathic Italians who are actually willing to go anywhere near a horse respond well to horse petting, but we’ll get to that later.)

The group is greeting by a crusty old codger, Wyatt Webb (who, to be fair does not deserve the title of this entry this week — he wasn’t derpy, he was just surrounded by derp), who explains that he has been a therapist for 33 years, so that’ll be Therapist Codger to you, and ohbytheway, they’re not here to ride horses, so it turns out that it’s cool that all of the women showed up wearing shorts. Instead, they’re going to be picking horse hooves.

Laurita is the first to be horse hoof therapied, and Wyatt explains that he just needs to stand next to the horse, grab its leg and pick. Laurita is a little nervous about being kicked, but Wyatt gets to the zen of ippoterapia: it’s not about the horse, it’s about the picker’s authenticity. And so Laurita, because he’s “authentic,” marches right up to the horse, grabs its leg and picks the hoof. Nessun problema.

Jeff Goldblum Jr., because he’s Jeff Goldblum Jr., cracks wise about how Wyatt is charging people to come clean his horses, and Wyatt is all, “And you use jokes to cover up your real feelings.”

The rest of the cast.

Rosie volunteers to be the next to be horse hoof therapied, and before she can even grab the horse’s leg, Wyatt is like, “Lemme guess, you don’t feel worthy.” Rosie bursts into tears, and grabs the horse’s hoof and starts picking, completely healed, I suppose.

Melissa steps forward and proceeds to mock the entire exercise by telling Wyatt that her deepest fear is being peed on by the horse, declaring that she’s going to do the “Rosie walk” up to the horse and then swinging her hips in a prance in the most inaccurate Rosie impersonation of all time, and then dismissing Wyatt’s suggestion that her problem is that she doesn’t feel appreciated when she does nice things for other people. WHO ARE YOUS, YOUS DON’T KNOW ME, Melissa later yells. But Wyatt does call her a puttana for that walk, so Point: Wyatt.

When Melissa can’t convince Cracker to lift his hoof for her, because fottiti, puttana, that’s why, Folletto jumps up to help and drags his sorella into the mess. Per farla breve: Folletto is able to pick the horse’s hoof, Melissa and Teresa run shrieking from the practically comatose horse, Caroline narrows her eyes in disapproval.

When the Jeff Goldblum Jrs go up together for their turn to weep piteously and pet the horsey, Meatball jumps up to take a suspicious phone call in what at first looks to be a recreation of the infamous “fica” phone call from last season. But! Instead! As Teresa marches over to him, we learn that he’s actually on the phone with Mortadella, because Meatball is a famiglia man and DOES NOT CHEAT WHY WOULD YOUS EVEN SUGGEST THAT.

Meanwhile, Jeff Goldblum Jr. and Kathy cry at the horse about Jeff Goldblum Jr.’s supposed rage issues and Kathy’s spinelessness issues, all without il Meatballs there to bear witness. This hurts their feelings for some reason. When il Meatballs return to the horse hoof therapy, Wyatt yells at them to turn off their phones and take the hoof picking seriously, yous guys.

Also this.

Jacqueline is next, and she cries and cries and cries about NOTHING before picking the hoof. Teresa offers her a hug which is either very nice or an attempt to take some of the cell phone heat off of her, whichever.

Meatball steps up and tells Wyatt that he’s nervous and tired and hungover. When Meatball attempts to approach the horse, Mr. Cracker is like, “OH HELLS NO TO YOUS, GOOMBAH, YOUS GONNA PUNCH ME OR SOMETHIN,” and takes a step away, startling Meatball. Wyatt uses this as an opportunity to ask Meatball about his deepest fears. “Horses?” Meatball tries, before opening up that he has some issues he’s dealing with, “motor vehicle” issues, “motor vehicle” issues that involve lawyers. And everyone else is like, “OH, MERDA! WHAT IS HAPPENING? IS THIS REAL LIFE?” because they have no idea about the crazy federal charges that are headed everyone’s way in a year from now, and they still naively, sweetly think it’s a big deal that Meatball might actually acknowledge what is now a minor traffic violation in comparison.

Next up, Caroline and Albert who approach Wyatt and Cracker together, and Wyatt immediately asks Albert if he was abused.

Albert begins sobbing, because Daddy Issues, and the Manzos both pick at that now completely spotless hoof.

“THANKS!” says Mr. Cracker. “BUT COULD Y’ALL HAVE MAYBE TAKEN A LOOK AT MY OTHER THREE HOOVES?”

Back at their suite, the Goldblum Jrs marvel that Meatball admitted that he was scared, and agree to work on the marital issues they made up so as to have something of a storyline this season.

Meanwhile, in il Folletto’s suite, Teresa and Melissa both jabber about their lack of insecurities, insist that they don’t try to impress people, hate horses and WHO DOES THAT WYATT THINK HE IS, ANYWAY, THEIR THERAPIST? COME ON.

Over in the Laurita suite, Laurita goes all deep on Jacqueline, suggesting that really the horse = Melissa’s face Teresa, and that when she stepped forward to be horse hoof therapied, Jacqueline was actually afraid of getting kicked or peed on by Teresa, not Mr. Cracker. Laurita then encourages Jacqueline to face her fear and pick Teresa’s hoof.

Finally, in il Meatballs’ hot tub, Meatball whines at Teresa about how much he doesn’t deserve to go to jail, which LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. But seriously, though, LOL.

L to the O to the madrecazzo L.

That evening, the goombahs meet a Native American fellow who teaches them to hit a drum with a drumstick thereby uniting them to the universe and ending all greed and crime everywhere. And the horse hoof therapy must have worked, because no one hits anyone else with their mallet.

Later, Rosie yells at il Meatballs for taking a phone call while Kathy was picking at Cracker’s hoof.

Teresa argues that it WAS HER KIDS ON THE PHONE. She HAD to take that call! Even though it wasn’t an emergency! It was molto important that she and Meatball tell Mortadella about Mr. Cracker RIGHT THAT MOMENT, COME ON.

And Kathy gets all irritated by Rosie even mentioning it because she can stand up for herself, thanks, but she’s not going to because of reasons.

Meatball announces that they are going to play a game wherein he’s Cracker and Caroline is Wyatt, a game that ends with Folletto riding Meatball, of course, because of course.

And finally, Jacqueline and Teresa go outside to have their own private burning ceremony, sans gong. Jac mentions the whole karma comment, and Teresa is shocked, because she was clearly talking about herself, duh. They talk about reconciling, and Jacqueline tells Tre that she doesn’t want to disappoint her again. So she writes “disappointing” on a piece of paper and throws it into the fire pit. For her part, Teresa declares that she’s going to give Jacqueline the attention she so clearly craves, which doesn’t seem like a friendly gesture of reconciliation as much as a passive aggressive dig at needy Jacqueline, but what do I know, because suddenly Jacqueline is picking Teresa’s hoof and everyone is amici again just like that.

My cuticles are cracking and my skin is flaking from the lack of humidity, but we’ve got at least one more week of desert therapy to go, bambole. On a hilarious note, Andy Cohen and Watch What Happens Live! return on Sunday, and Ol’ Square Boobs, Nose Job herself, Danielle Staub will be his guest. Be sure to set your VCRs, prostitution whores!

The Real Housewives of New Jersey airs Sunday nights at 8 p.m./7 p.m. Central on Bravo.